Chipping Sparrow
Spizella
passerina
Description
5-5 1/2" (13-14 cm). A small sparrow.
Upperparts are brown, streaked with black; underparts, sides of
face, and rump are gray. Adult has chestnut crown, white eyebrow,
with thin black line through eye. Young birds have streaked crown,
buff eyebrow, and duller underparts.
Voice
Thin musical trill, all on 1 note like the
whir of a sewing machine.
Habitat
Grassy woodland edges, gardens, city
parks, brushy pastures, and lawns.
Nesting
3-5 pale blue eggs, lightly spotted with
brown, in a solid cup of grass and stems, almost always lined with
hair, placed in shrubbery or in a tangle of vines.
Range
Breeds throughout most of continent from
Yukon, Manitoba, and Newfoundland south to California, Texas, and
northern Florida; also in Mexico. Winters across southern United
States southward into Mexico.
Discussion
The Chipping Sparrow's habit of lining
its nest with hair has earned it the name "Hairbird." Formerly, it
utilized horsehair, but with the decline in the use of horses it
takes any hair available and will even pluck strands from the coat
of a sleeping dog. Originally inhabitants of natural clearings and
brushy forest borders, these sparrows are now found in gardens and
suburban areas and have become familiar songbirds. During most of
the year they feed on the ground, but in the breeding season males
always sing from an elevated perch. Their food consists mainly of
seeds, but in summer the adults and the young feed on
insects.
